Connections
with the past
by Joshua Falken
Thanks to Julia_Cat for beta-read this chapter :-)
"The past never ends and the
future never begins..."
-quote from the opening monologue of "The Wall", an
Early Edition episode.
Prologue - The Accident
The black-haired, green-skinned sprite looked through the window of her office. Outside there was a beautiful cycle transition, or, to use an Userworld expression, a beautiful sunset. Smiling at the beauty of the phenomenon, she placed her things in the purse and left.
"Good middle-cycle, Mrs. Matrix," her secretary greeted her.
Kathleen Barron Matrix smiled.
"Good middle-cycle, Allison. I'll see you later!" She waved before the door of the elevator closed. At that moment, a vidwindow opened up.
"Hi Kathleen!" A black-haired and green-skined sprite, like her, but with black eyes, wearing a lab coat appeared in the vidvindow. His red tie was crooked. A smile appeared on her lips.
"Hi, Welman. How are you processing?"
"I'm fine. And you?"
"Me too. How are things going in the lab?"
"They're alphanumeric!" He smiled, with a wink, and whispered. "Today we will make the definitive experiment."
"Already?! I thought that was marked for the next second..."
Her husband appeared surprised.
"Didn't you read the progress report?"
"I didn't get it... We had problems with the negotiations with System Gauss about the new inductors factory." She sighed, tired.
Welman understood very well. Kathleen was the kind of person who liked to solve the problems once and for all, but she also insisted that the solution helped both sides of the problem. However, that was particularly difficult when it came to dealing with Roger Bandwidth, the representative of System Gauss...
"But did you get to solve the problem?"
She gave a playful smile, and answered with fake petulance. "Yes, of course!"
He laughed.
"Well... We discovered some shortcuts in the process. We are already preparing the experiment to test the recompilator."
"Wow! It seems like you did it, doesn't it?"
"I hope so... And Dot and Enzo?"
"Dot is working on her diner, and Enzo, you know him; if he isn't playing with Frisket, he'll be with Dot." Kathleen shook her head, amused. "Those two are practically joined at the hip!"
Welman smiled.
"They really are...... oops! I have to go!"
"Ok... Good-bye. And fix that tie!"
"Hey!"
She laughed, while the vidwindow closed and the door of the elevator opened.
"Good-middle cycle, Mrs. Matrix."
"Good-middle cycle, Mr. Steph. I'll see you later." She waved for the guard of the door of the building.
After arranging her purse on her shoulder, she discompressed a zipboard and she rose on it. Her destination now was the Sector Baudway.
* * *
A female sprite, 18-hours-old, dressed head to toe in a black jumpsuit, and with her bangs dyed with all the colors of the rainbow, was seated on the counter in the diner that she intended to open soon, checking the stock records. She heard a well-known voice:
"Hey, Trinity!"
Dot Matrix wasn't quite able to hide her grimace when she heard her nickname. Only one sprite called her that.
"HI Mom." she said with a resigned sigh.
"Hi Dot. How are you processing?"
"I'm fine. And you?"
"Me too." Kathleen sat down in the chair beside Dot and she looked at in turn. "How's your diner going?"
It was impossible for a sprite with half a neural interface not to notice that the two women were mother and daughter. The resemblance was impressive. If Kathleen were a little younger, she could pass as Dot's older sister.
"I was just checking the stock records." A small proud smile appeared on the younger sprite's face. "And soon, we will be serving the fastest food in Mainframe! Hey, do you want an energy shake?"
"Sure."
Dot typed a command in her organizer and from the end of the counter came an energy shake that traveled so fast, it went by them in the blink of an eye and left the diner itself.
"'The fastest food in Mainframe'?" Kathleen repeated, while she looked, surprised, toward the shake's escape route. Dot gave a weak smile and was about to answer when she was cut off by a five-hour-old sprite running into the building and jumping into Kathleen's arms.
"HI MOM!"
"HI Enzo!... Well... you are a little heavy for that, you know." She put the hyperactive sprite on the ground. Enzo didn't seem to have heard the remark (and that didn't suprise either of them) because he continued to say that he was playing with Frisket, and that the dog now knew a new trick and other such things.
Kathleen and Dot looked at each other and smiled. When Enzo began, there was no way of reducing his audio clockspeed...
"Well, big boy, tomorrow you can continue your story, because now it's bedtime!"
"Oh, Mom!" Enzo protested, in spite of the fact that he was already yawning.
"Sorry, but no "Oh, mom's!" tonight!" Kathleen caught Enzo in her arms, since now he slept openly, and she asked Dot. "Can you help me to put this energy core in bed?"
"Sure!" She answered, laughing while she opened the diner's door.
* * *
After placing Enzo in the bed, Kathleen kissed the sleeping boy's forehead.
"Sweet dreams," she whispered.
She went to the living room of her Beverly Hills apartment. Dot was sitting on the couch, waiting for her.
"So?"
Kathleen shook her head. "I don't understand how he can be such a little devil during the uptime and an angel when he sleeps."
Dot only shrugged.
"And daddy?" The teen sprite asked.
"Didn't I tell you?" Kathleen said surprised.
"No."
"Well, your father's testing the recompilator this cycle."
"Tonight?"
"Yes. And that reminds me that I need to go there!"
"Do you want a ride?"
* * *
They went down to the building's garage. Kathleen was already regretting having accepted her daughter's offer. The reason: the vehicle that would take them to Sector Nastran, in Mainframe B, was Dot's motorcycle. Mounting her bike, she asked her mother: "Coming?"
Kathleen looked at the white and red sport motorbike. It wasn't that she didn't trust Dot: she knew that the daughter was an excellent motorcyclist - the fact was simply that she didn't trust those machines. But she had noticed the smile that Dot had given to her insecure glance.
With a sigh, Kathleen clicked in her own icon, adding a leather jacket, and mounted the machine.
Dot turned the ignition key. The motorbike roared. The older sprite quickly put on her helmet.
"Hold on!" Dot warned. Kathleen held her daughter's waist with force as the bike emerged from the garage at top speed.
* * *
"So? Will you come back with me or will you wait for dad?" Dot asked while they crossed the Mosaic bridge, that connected the Twin Cities.
"I will come back with your father," Kathleen answered. One motorcycle trip was enough for one downtime!
Dot knew the reason for her answer and she smiled. Just to tease her mother, she accelerated.
Kathleen looked around, trying not to think about the high speed. Suddenly, her face become serious, even angry, because of what she had just seen.
The Silicon Tor.
The place where Megabyte, a virus that tried to infect Mainframe, conspired. Kathleen only prayed that one cycle the User would put an end with him... Her thoughts were interrupted when Dot made a tight curve when leaving the bridge.
They continued until they arrived in front of the Pentium Institute building. It was a great complex in a remote area of Sector Nastran. Kathleen said goodbye to her daughter, and she went up the stairway that led to the reception area of the institute. She took an identification card from her purse and passed it in the reader.
"State intention," the vidwindow of the automatic security system asked.
"To talk with Dr. Welman Matrix, director of Pentium Institute."
"State name."
"Kathleen Barron Matrix."
"Vocal spectrum analysis confirmed. You may enter."
She could not avoid sighing as she opened the glass door. All that security could seem considered exaggerated, but considering the type of research that was conducted here, it was necessary. Nobody wanted to think of what could happen if some knowledge acquired here got into the wrong hands. The fact that she had access to the institute was one of the advantages of being the Executive President and CEO of Datagrid Corporation.
"Hi, Mrs. Matrix."
"Hi, Mr. Hobton. Could you take me to my husband's laboratory?"
"Sure."
She and the security guard walked down the sterile hallways until they arrived at a double door with the registration: Project 686.
"I will inform Dr. Matrix." After typing a password in a keyboard beside the door, the guard entered the laboratory.
Kathleen waited, whistling a tune and crossing her arms. She thought of Project 686, the project Second Chance, created by her husband. She knew the reason for the project very well: to recuperate the sprites converted into nulls by the Games. She knew that since that her company was the sponsor...
The guard reappeared.
"You can enter."
She entered the laboratory and couldn't contain a surprised whistle. The equipment used in the experiment was impressive. The pulse generators that would be used to refragment the nulls were double her height.
"Hello, Kathleen."
"Hi, Welman." She kissed her husband.
"Dr. Matrix?" Christopher Ethernet, the technician of energy flow, called him.
"Yes?"
"We already gauged the pulse generators and now we are verifying the identificators of source code."
"Ok."
They went into the control room. Kathleen already knew the other two sprites, Mica Noyce and Kevin Altair. The young medical analyst shook hands, while Altair only nodded slightly to greet her. That had not surprised her. He was one of the main engineers of Datagrid, extremely competent, but everybody knew that Altair and Kathleen couldn't stand each other.
"Seventh verification concluded!" Chip Fortran informed over the intercom. Mica and Christopher sent smiles to Welman when they noticed the field technician's tired tone. "Activate that at once!"
"Chip, we will work with great amounts of energy... if we active the recompilator, we need to have the certainty that nothing will go wrong," Welman explained. He and Chip had worked together 10 hours ago, the practical temper of one complementing the analytic mind of another.
"Welman, we checked the equipment seven times! If there was a problem, we would have found it! Come on!"
Welman gave up.
"Ok! Test number 1 of the recompilator!"
The technicians went to their positions. Mica left the control room.
"Activate pulse generators."
A buzzing sound came from the two sides of the laboratory.
"Okay, Chip. You can place our friend."
Kathleen watched Chip and Mica as they placed a blue null with yellow stripes in a chamber in the center of the laboratory. Mica locked the door.
"Initialize the identificators of source code."
Welman looked at Kathleen. She crossed the arms. She wasn't in any less danger than they were. Andrew understood and he gave her a protection glasses, which she put immediately.
"Activate identification."
A blueish-white light came out of the windows of the chamber. At that moment, two robots similar to tridents were positioned above the same.
"Mica, the medical readings?"
"Ok."
"Kevin?"
"The pulse generators are at 60%, and in the chamber the weather is perfect." He smiled, in his slightly lupine way.
"Chris?"
"Stable energy."
"Began defragmentation!"
The generators began to order pulses of high energy for the chamber, that had begun to vibrate.
"Our friend is well!" Mica answered, being early the question of the director of the research.
"Chip?"
"Vibrations inside expected!"
Through a vidwindow connected to the interior of the chamber, they saw the null to begin to change shape.
"Pulse generators at 100% capacity!"
"Begin decompression."
The pulses of energy changed frequency. All eyes concentrated on the vidwindow. The null had begun to grow and to assume the form of a sprite.
Welman allowed himself a smile.
It was then that the null-sprite it began to vibrate crazily and its body seemed to shine as if a tear had opened inside of it.
"CURSORS!" Chris screamed, noticing the chamber shining, melting. "Energy in exponential flow!!! Energy in expo..."
He could not complete the warning because the chamber and the generators exploded in a giant tear, deleting all of them in the room and the sector with them...
* * *
Dot was in the middle of the Mosaic bridge when she heard the explosion. She turned, and she saw the waves of energy deleting the sectors of the twin city. The white and violet energy progressed like a tidal wave.
Mom! Dad! her mind screamed.
She quickly cleared her mind when she felt the bridge start to shake with the force of the incoming energy wave.
Dot accelerated and pushed the motorbike as fast as it could go, escaping from the energy flood. She looked back. The energy was already on the bridge, twisting it in a spiral. There were only a few meters between herself and Mainframe A...
It was then that she was thrown by the explosion of a micro-tear on the other side of the bridge. She felt her back burning due to the explosion and the energy. The flood continued in her direction...
She tried to move, but she couldn't... the pain of the burns was too much.
Dot closed her violet eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
There were now five meters between the flood of exponential energy and Mainframe A... when the energy dissipated.
The only thing Dot felt was a hot wind.
Dot Matrix leaned against her destroyed motorcycle, seeing the shadows of the now distorted Mosaic bridge... now attached to nothing...
* * *
The explosion had waken up Enzo Matrix. Afraid and curious, he opened the window of his bedroom.. and he saw Mainframe B shine violently and then he heard the deafening noise silence itself and the dazzling shine faded.
Enzo was too young to understand why, but he knew what had happened...
He shrank in a corner of the dark room and cried.
* * *
Mainframe emergency teams found Dot Matrix leaning against a wrecked bike, looking forlornly at what had been Mainframe B. A binome in the ambulance had treated her burns and was now trying to get the shocked sprite to say something.
"Everything will be fine, girl!" The binome knew that the words sounded false and useless.
Dot turned away so that the nurse couldn't see her tears. Both Dot and her little brother knew that the world that they had known... had forever disappeared.
But she could not know that the events of that cycle would come back to haunt her, in the future...
To be continued...
Next chapter coming soon...